Hagel, accompanied by Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld, said that the sweeping strategic choices and management review he directed earlier this year examined three central scenarios, and that all of them fell short of savings targets.

The three different scenarios include President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 budget, which "backloads" $150 billion in defense cuts over a 10-year period; Budget Control Act sequester cap figures, which cuts $52 billion in fiscal 2014 and $500 billion over the next 10 years; and an "in-between" scenario, in which defense spending is reduced by $250 billion over 10 years.

The review was designed to help Pentagon leadership prepare for the possibility of continued sequestration cuts into 2014, as well as to inform out-year budget planning for the services and set the stage for the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review. Hagel stressed that the review is not a blueprint but an evaluation that produced the three different options.

One area of focus is reducing DOD's overhead costs, which take up as much as half the Pentagon budget. Hagel said some options should be implemented immediately, regardless of the fate of sequestration.

The focus on overhead and management efficiencies includes measures such as reducing personnel at major military headquarters by 20 percent, starting with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, combatant commands and defense agencies. The measures would also consolidate functions in OSD and in intelligence analysis and production, saving up to $40 billion over the next decade.

To help overcome hurdles in executing the cuts, Hagel said he has directed Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter to find an expert from outside DOD to help direct implementation.

Force structure and modernization stand to take significant hits in all three scenarios; the cuts would "bend" and could possibly "break" national security strategy, the officials noted.

"Given that reality, the review examined two strategic approaches to reducing force structure and modernization that will inform planning for sequester-level cuts," Hagel said. "The basic trade-off is between capacity – measured in the number of Army brigades, Navy ships, Air Force squadrons and Marine battalions – and capability – our ability to modernize weapons systems to maintain our military’s technological edge."

Trading capacity for capability would result in a more technologically dominant military, but one that is smaller and able to perform fewer missions. Opting for size over capability would sustain power projection and presence, but would seriously slow or curtail modernization programs and cripple cyber development, Hagel said.

"Cuts on this scale would, in effect, be a decade-long modernization holiday," he said. "The military could find its equipment and weapons systems – many of which are already near the end of their service lives – less effective against more technologically advanced adversaries. We also have to consider how massive cuts to procurement and research and development funding would impact the viability of America's private sector industrial base."

And even if DOD combined all the different options, it leaves the Pentagon well short of the targeted reduction levels under sequestration, Hagel and Winnefeld noted. They also warned that it will be even worse if Congress does not cooperate with proposed cuts – any proposal to freeze military pay, for example, could be expected to meet stiff resistance on the Hill.

"The reality is that cuts to overhead, compensation and forces generate savings slowly. With dramatic reductions in each area, we do reach sequester-level savings – but only towards the end of a 10-year timeframe. Every scenario the review examined showed shortfalls in the early years of $30-35 billion," Hagel said. "These shortfalls will be even larger if Congress is unwilling to enact changes to compensation or adopt other management reforms and infrastructure cuts we proposed in our fiscal year 2014 budget. Opposition to these proposals must be engaged and overcome, or we will be forced to take even more draconian steps in the future."

OPM is partnering with CSID to try to manage the fallout from a massive breach of some 4 million federal personnel records.

Reader comments

Thu, Aug 15, 2013

@Mandatory resignation... It is usually the football manager who gets fired when a team does not do well. Their lack of performance is a reflection of the manager. The president is the commander in chief. He should be able to bring folks together. Easier to fire one guy than the whole tem. The perfromance of the congress can be laid at the feet of one person, the president. He divides, doesn't unite. Even if you did fire the whole team (congress), you'll get replacements that know nothing but are smart and crafty. Good luck with that.

Fri, Aug 2, 2013

Mandatory resignation of all congressmen at the end of the calendar year if they fail to produce an approved budget/appropriation package by the first day of the fiscal year. That gives each state a couple of months to look for replacements that will take their jobs more seriously. If they are all on the hook for producing the needed results, they will be motivated to start working together for the country vs only their own agendas. DOD is another story - a completed audit of huge budget is insanely overdue. Just because they say they "need" the funding doesn't really mean that it is justified or actually required for national security and protection. As all agencies do, they are saying they will have to sacrifice the more critical functions for their mission, while they hide away the non-critical expenditures. Get a full DOD audit for CBO, GAO, OMB & OPM (contractors vs feds) to comb through! Why do we need to have so many of these organization to keep government expenditures honest?

Fri, Aug 2, 2013

Just like a broken record, I am asking one more time...."Is anyone reviewing stove-piped systems, especially in the logistics environment (Navy in particular)? You could save loads of $$$$ if you would go to an enterprise environment for the entire DoD Logistics environment.

Fri, Aug 2, 2013

As usual, no talk of root causes. Government organizations are not businesses. There is no bottom line incentive (profit, shares, etc), and most management and performance incentives are toward growth and risk reduction, not efficiency or cost cutting. Some smart people could do nation a great turn and help government sort out how to incentivize SES and GO pool to do hard things that are not popular.

Fri, Aug 2, 2013

These are all good comments so far. The thing is that none of them will be implemented because it would require sacrafice at the leadership level. Gone are the days when leaders ate after their troops (figuratively speaking). Military managers (I'm not going to give them the honor of being called leaders - that skill is GONE) all want to build their own kingdoms. They would neve make a decision that would do away with their pet projects. I was stationed at Ft. Lewis years ago when the installation support personnel were down-sized. One person has commented on what happened. The GS- 7s and below took the big hit. They had to scramble in incorporate soldiers to fill in those requirements. I know because the company I commanded provided a lot of them. Once again the lower level personnel will take the hit while congress and other "high" level mis-managers will set there on their big selves and wonder why they can't get any real work done. Yes I am upset at this whole mess.